Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Venus Fly Trap Puppet Craft - Revamp

The younger children passed a rainy morning, yesterday, watching a few more Nick Jr shows, before we're "officially" too old for them. A quick Google search produced a list of shows with bug themes, that I thought would tie in nicely to our week. I was especially happy to find The Wonder Pets Save the Ladybug (episode 9 of season 2, if you're interested), because in the episode, the Wonder Pets save a ladybug from a venus fly trap.

Our venus fly trap is still very much alive, and the children have really enjoyed keeping an eye on it, so they got a big kick out of one being included in the episode.

The episode takes place in North Carolina, so I give Nick Jr points for getting the geography right, but after that, our learning and review took place mostly through correcting the errors.

The ladybug needing rescue was supposed to be a baby ladybug. Cute sounding, to be sure, who doesn't want to see a baby ladybug? But we've seen them, and they are not cute, or for that matter, really ladybugs - they are larvae.

When the ladybug falls into the venus fly trap, the trap closes very slowly, while the Wonder Pets work out a rescue plan. We've seen the plant in action, and it does not close slowly, when a struggling bug is triggering the hairs inside the trap.

The venus fly trap snaps at the foot of one of the characters - something very out of character for the plant.

The children got a real kick out of finding the errors. And, it gave us a good chance to discuss fiction verses non-fiction, and creative license. It also revived their interest in our venus fly trap puppet craft, after a quick alteration to turn our flies into ladybugs.

Look out baby...er...totally grown up, adult ladybug, that's not a safe place to play!

That is why I gave up all TV shows that seem to be teaching but are actually just giving out misinformation. You did a great job using the show as a review of facts, however. Great job of using a show of misinformation to your advantage.

About Me

I'm a homeschool mom of six. My family has been homeschooling for about fourteen years. And, each year, we've learned a little more about having fun, and spending less, while learning more. It's great to be a homeschooler!

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I'm very happy to share ideas, and thoughts with you. I try to give credit to others when they inspire, or add instructions to a project, and ask that you do the same for me. You may copy ideas and pictures from this blog as long as you give credit and link back to the original post. Thanks

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